2pm Beijing time Welcome to the Water Cube, where Tom Daley is about to take his Olympic bow alongside Blake Aldridge in the synchronised 10m platform diving, due off at 2.30pm here.

The British contingent inside the aquatics centre is beaming after Rebecca Adlington and Joanne Jackson took gold and bronze in the 400m freestyle a couple of hours ago, but young Tom's debut is not a parochial affair. He made the front page of the China Daily's sports section today, evidence that he has captured the imagination beyond Blighty.

They love a diver in China, unsurprising perhaps given that they have won 20 of the 32 titles in Olympic history, and they look nailed on for another one this afternoon courtesy of reigning world champions Lin Yue and Huo Lang. Russian pair Gleb Galperin and Dmitriy Dobroskok look the most likely challengers to the Chinese so the received wisdom is that Tom and Blake - does that make them sound like singer and lead guitar in an earnest indie band? - are competing for the bronze with the USA and Germany. T&B appeared at poolside about 40 minutes ago to join the throng of divers warming up for competition. There are about 20 divers hurling themselves off the various springboards and platforms in front of me, almost casually reeling off fiendishly acrobatic dives.

T&B joined in at 1.37pm, taking their first practice plunge off the 5m platform, before trying the 10m board 10 minutes later. Helpfully Tom is wearing black wristbands, which makes identification a little easier. Surprisingly given his youth and size - he's 5'1" in his verucca socks - he's not that much smaller or younger-looking than the rest of the field.

They have just wandered over to speak to Leon Taylor, who won silver with Pete Waterfield four years ago and has been acting as his mentor in the run-up to the games. The British entourage all give the pair a hug and they are off to the locker room to prepare for the real thing.

2.15pm A word about the format. There are eight teams in today's final qualifying by virtue of performances in the 2007 World Championships and the 2008 World Cup. They are, by order of start list, Australia, Cuba, Great Britain, Germany, USA, Colombia, China and Russia.

Each pair will perform six dives in rotation, each of which has a degree of difficulty. Daley and Aldridge will start with a forward one-and-a-half somersault. With pike. Obviously. Degree-of-difficulty 2.0. There are nine judges, four to rate execution and five to look after synchronisation. As the name suggests, that last category is the key to the event. The official list does not give the nationality of the judges, so the conspiracy theories will have to wait until later.

Two execution judges sit on each side of the pool judging the diver nearest to them only. The five synchronicity judges also split up but watch both divers. They then each award a mark out of 10, with the highest and lowest score in each category dropped. That leaves five scores of 10 or less. The total is then multiplied by three and divided by five to give a raw score out of 30. That is then multiplied by the degree of difficulty to give the final score. Got that?

2.20pm The teams have just arrived and lined up in their tracksuits for their introduction. A large cheer and several Union flags greet T&B, but the welcome is beaten by the reception the Australians get. Lots of Aussies lingering from the morning events I suspect. The Chinese get a huge roar. Young Tom looks his usual unnaturally relaxed self.

2.30pm Leon Taylor is not only an Olympic silver medallist but also officially a very nice chap. He has just shared the benefit of his considerable wisdom with the Guardian moments before going on air to share it with the nation. According to Leon, Tom is relaxed, but the challenge he and Blake face is performing under pressure in their first major final.

"When Pete and I got our medal in Athens we had the benefit of having been to Sydney and finished fifth," he says. "We left there knowing what an Olympic final is about and in Athens we knew if we did our stuff some of the rookies would drop away. If Tom and Blake can deal with the pressure then they have a chance."

2.30pm Tom's parents Rob and Debbie have been spotted in the crowd on the far side of the pool with his two brothers and all four grandparents. Tom has just been spotted in the shower and he can't resist a grin at the camera. He really does appear to be made for this. Meanwhile, the Australians Matthew Helm and Robert Newberry are on the board for the first dive. It's all downhill from here...

2.32pm Aged 14 years and 94 days Tom Daley is about to appear in an Olympic final.

2.34 And it's a good one by the look of it. They score 52.8 overall, with higher marks for synchronisation than execution. No sign of nerves from here, but they will be feeling better for that.

2.40pm The first round is over with Daley and Aldridge lying joint third in a three-way tie with Australia and Germany. All the teams kicked off with fairly routine dives, nothing more difficult than a 2.0, but it is fairly clear already that the Chinese are the team to beat.

Lin Yue and Huo Lang loook less like two divers than one and a mirror. Their first effort was the most straightforward there is, listed simply as a "forward dive" with pike, but they nailed it and barely left a splash behind them and got a whopping 57.0 from the judges. True to the form book the Russians are lying second with 53.4, then comes the pack on 52.8. Long way to go and all that, but T&B seem to be scrapping for the places.

2.51pm Relax everyone, the politicians have arrived. Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has just slipped into his seat two along from Tessa Jowell just in time to see T&B take their second plunge, an inward one-and-half somersault that the judges don't like so much. They get only 50.4 for an effort that somehow, imperceptibly almost was not as tidy as their first. It is hard to say how, but you get a sense of whether they've nailed it from the sound as the pair of them enter the water like missiles. The better executed the dive the less splash, and the more synchronised they are the crisper the noise as they enter the water. That noise was, for want of the technical term, a bit sloppy.

It wasn't good enough to keep them in the medal places after two rounds either. The Americans, Germans and the Aussies out-scored them there, but all are chasing the Chinese. Lin and Huo's second dive was, according to the judges, approaching perfection, an inward dive - they start with their backs to the water - worth 59.4, only six tenths off a perfect 60 for that dive. They've opened up an 8 point lead on the Russians and there's a 13-point gap to T&B. Work to do.

3.03pm Round three and another splashy effort from T&B. Their most difficult dive yet, an inward three-and-a-half somersault gets nothing better than a seven for execution, but the synchronicity wasn't too bad. Was that a touch of over-rotation I spotted on entry? I'll check with a judge later.

Anyway, it's dropped them down to last place because the opposition are starting to get tricksy. Even the Cubans and the Colombians have steamed past. The German pair Patrick Hausding and Sascha Klein just pulled off a very fancy effort, two-and-half backward somersaults with one-and-a-half twists thrown in. Most of us would be lucky to live if we tried it, but they manage to break the water within a fag paper of each other to push up into the medals at the expense of the USA. The Chinese continue to set the standard and are way out in front. On this form they could afford to bomb their last dive and still win.

3.13pm THe halfway stage and it seems that Blake is in charge of the team, assuming that the boss is the one that says "Ready, steady, go" when they're balancing on tiptoe 10m above the pool. Not sure exactly what he says, but he definitely mouths something that only Tom can hear before the leap into the void.

A better effort by some distance in the fourth round, a back three-and-a-half somersault, and a poor effort from the Germans cheers up the Brits a bit more. They are resigned however to young Tom marking this one down as experience.

The Chinese meanwhile are already humming the national anthem as Lin Yue and Huo Lang produce another awesome effort. As they leap into their inward three-and-a-half somersault even the water droplets spraying from their hair appear to fly in unison. They maintain their eight point lead over the Russians, and the tussle for bronze looks to be between the USA, currently third, and the Germans four points back. T&B lie seventh, ahead of the Cubans.

3.20pm Fascinating though it is to concentrate on a lad who ought be on his BMX with his mates experimenting with tobacco, but instead finds himself taking on the world, it would be remiss not to briefly mention the rest of the field. The Cubans are the duo you would least want to fight, while the Colombians have the best tattoos by some distance. The Russians have the palest skin and sternest brows, just ahead of the Germans.

While we wait for the fifth round to get under way, meanwhile, a hidden DJ plays us a re-mix of what I think is Cotton Eye Joe, a risible dance track from the late 1990s. Those keen to know who it was by, look below later. Someone will know.

3.27pm We've seen the fifth round and the Chinese could still win if only one diver makes it up the ladder. They are 24 points clear and the crowd are going wild, flags waving as they chant "China, China". Another iffy disco tune is playing and everyone else joins in for a bit of a boogie in the stands. It feels like a lively rain delay at Wimbledon with revolutionary Communist overtones.

Behind the Chinese the Russians look safe in second, but the battle for bronze is wide open, though not open enough for T&B to have a chance. They are still seventh, holding off the Cubans for pride's sake, but anyone of Germany, currently third, Australia and the USA can take the third medal.

3.35pm That's it, all over in the Water Cube and Tom Daley's first Olympic competition ends in last place, less than a point behind the Cubans. Leon Taylor was right - performing under this pressure when you have never encountered it before is not easy. Tom looks as delighted to be here as he has since that grin first emerged, and he knows that he will have a much better chance to take a medal four years hence, all being well. Blake may not get the chance, which is why he looks a little more glum.

China, naturally, have taken gold, and they almost took the roof off with their final dive, a hugely difficult back two-and-a-half somersault with two-and-a-half twists. I feel like I need to visit my chiropractor after typing it, but they manage it effortlessly to seal China's 22nd diving gold in Olympic history.

In a dramatic finish meanwhile the Germans edge out the Russians for the silver, much to the disappointment of Gleb and Dmitriy. Off to see what T&B have to say about it now, thanks for paying attention.